Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced Tuesday that the company documents Iraq's national museum and will post photographs of its ancient treasures on the Internet early next year, according to Associated Press.
Free Hot Penny Stocks, an online financial publication, provides investors timely stock market alerts. Free hot penny stocks profiles stock picks that could generate higher returns than average. These penny stocks include stocks with news, chart breakouts or increased volume.
Sign Up Today for our Penny Stock Newsletter
The museum was ransacked in the chaotic aftermath of Saddam Hussein's ouster in April 2003, and only reopened to visitors early this year. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who toured the museum with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill on Tuesday, said it was important for the world to see Iraq's rich heritage and contribution to world culture.
Schmidt said Google has taken some 14,000 photographs of the museum and its artifacts, and the images will be available online in early 2010.
The antiquities in the museum's vast storage vaults and artifacts from other sites across the country will also be photographed as they become available and then put on the internet, he said.
The museum was among many institutions, including universities, hospitals, libraries and art galleries, that were looted or set ablaze across Iraq in the days and weeks that followed Saddam's ouster.
The museum holds artifacts from the Stone Age through the Babylonian, Assyrian and Islamic periods. The richness of its collection and its importance as a caretaker of the relics of early civilization triggered an outcry around the world.
U.S. troops, the sole power in the city at the time, were intensely criticized for not protecting the treasures at the museum and other cultural institutions like the national library and the Saddam Art Center, a museum of modern Iraqi art.
The national museum reopened in February after being closed for nearly six years. Its director, Amira Edan, said around 5,000 of the estimated 15,000 artifacts that were looted have been recovered so far.
Edan said Google's project marks another step toward normalcy for the museum, and will provide a useful tool for scholars studying ancient Mesopotamia, but also "a kind of tourism journey" for people with a more casual interest in the region's history.
Sign Up for Free Hot Penny Stocks’ FREE Penny Stock Newsletter.
About Us
Free Hot Penny Stocks is a financial website and independent electronic publication that provides information and free penny stock alerts on selected publicly traded companies. We also track small cap companies and other stocks that may be positioned to break out. These penny stocks might have news, increased volume or chart breakouts. These penny stocks that are alerted could generate greater than average returns. Feel free to visit our penny stock forum to discuss other penny stock picks or penny stocks that you might own.
Free Hot Penny Stocks is not a registered investment advisor or broker-dealer. Please do your own Due Diligence before investing in any of the stocks mentioned above. To feature a company on our web site please contact us at the email listed below.
Please click here to read the full disclaimer
